Our Awesome Day In Singapore

We decided to spend a day in Singapore as we needed to fly back into Thailand in order to get a new 30 day visa. We arrived in Singapore airport yesterday, but one of our bags did not. It was the bag with all our clothes in.


We were very good and didn't panic about this, but we were slightly annoyed. We blamed Malaysia. We went to our (rather nice) hotel and although the room is very small, it is very lovely and the shower is amazing.

Our bag turned up while we were out at dinner, so thank you Singapore. It all worked out well for us as we didn't have the hassle of carrying 2 bags to the... well, to the cab. Singapore is a very easy city to deal with.

Singapore is a very strange place, but now I have spent a whole day here, I have concluded that it is amazing. It is a city on steroids. It is health and safety mental. There are even signs in the loo to remind you to "aim correctly" so as not to make a mess on the floor. Mental.

The malls are ridiculously big and a bit scary - they make the Bentalls centre look like a corner shop, but I will ignore that and focus on the good stuff.

For our day in Singapore I wanted to go to Haw Paw Villa - the Tiger Balm Park. It is a bizarre place. It's basically a park with a shed load of garish statues all over the place.

Strange, isn't it?

They have the 10 stages of Hell. In Hell you are punished according to your crime, then you are given a cup of tea to make you forget your old bad life and you're reincarnated as an animal.

Reincarnated bugs... being buggered.

I loved this place, it was weird and fun. And their were terrapins.

After this we went on the cable car and got some coffee on the top of the hill.

The view was nice, and there is a forest / jungle here, but it is mainly the masses of buildings and development that you see. We also saw some dolphins. They were in a pool though, it was sad as dolphins are very intelligent and shouldn't be in a pool.

We then got some lunch. Then we weren't sure what to do with ourselves as we thought this would have taken longer. Singapore is a very easy place to be it seems. Everything just flows nicely. The people here are ridiculously nice and helpful too - everyone wanted to help us. It was really very lovely in the way.

So after lunch we went to the Bird Park. We got a cab with a very loud, friendly guy who was happily blaming the Jews for everything that was wrong with the world. He kept waving his hands around when he was excited, which was a lot of the time.

The Bird Park rocked. It was so nice.

Red Birds!!!

We saw loads of Hornbills and big fat pigeons and purple birds. Loads of birds that I didn't know existed before.

Fat Pigeons

We also saw this snubby nosed turtle thingy. I don't know what his name is as there wasn't a sign for him...

Snub nose thing

It was a really nice, fun, easy day - Singapore in a day.

For dinner we went off to find Sushi. Nic came to Singapore a few years ago for work and remembered a cool sushi place from back then, but it had disappeared. We asked a random man where we could get Sushi and he directed us to (another) mall. I didn't really want to eat in a shitty mall after such a lovely day, but I'm so glad we did. It was AMAZING. So, so, so, amazing. I can't find the words to explain how good it was. It was as nice as the meal that Gemma and I had in Barnes years ago in the Heaven and Hell place. 

So yeah... I really like Singapore. It's a very odd place in many respects, but it's great for a day out. I felt happy and safe and interested and relaxed and... just good all day, so thank you Singapore and the people who live here. You rock.

Rabbits and Squirrels in Hell